


I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire

by spinalimmobilization (gilead)



Series: Meet Me There [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gustus is a dog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-28 23:34:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3874087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilead/pseuds/spinalimmobilization
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke trespasses, avoids getting mauled, and gets away with as much as she dares to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire

Clarke is at loathe to admit that, like most undergraduates, her intoxicated ideas are not unusually intelligent. But there is no better time than the Saturday night following midterms to revel in this manner of mediocrity, and it's only when Raven hops the fence with a shrill “Someone's coming!”, abandoning Clarke with one leg in her jeans, that Clarke begins to regret not being exceptional.

It had started innocuously enough as a stroll home from the pub. Their favoured route between the bars and the dorms passed through a neighbourhood boasting convertibles in every driveway, creatively shaped pools, and low fences. When Clarke became momentarily enthralled with an intricate paper lantern hanging from the eaves of one particular house, and Raven took it as a sign.

Ten minutes later, Raven has also taken her shirt, and when a light comes on in the back of the house, Clarke finds herself posing poolside, half-naked and deer-in-headlights. A woman's silhouette is framed at the back door, all hair and long limbs. Clarke puts her other leg back into her jeans and crosses her arms over her breasts.

“Shit,” Clarke says.

Stepping out onto the patio, the woman points at the generous signage on the gate. In stern block lettering against a red background, one says: PRIVATE PROPERTY, and underneath it with matching sternness, BEWARE OF DOG.

“Can't you read?”

“Oh.” Clarke gulps. “Where's the dog?”

“Grounded for eating the couch.”

“That's um,” Clarke stutters, “better than eating people, I guess.”

“Is it? I haven't had uninvited visitors since I put that sign up.” A bark issues from inside the house, and the woman sighs. “You think a week's punishment is excessive?”

“What—” Clarke begins, then a fluffy mountain comes hurtling out of the house and directly at her.

She screams a little, curses at a conspicuously absent Raven, lands flat on on her back, and receives a liberal helping of canine saliva. She wrestles futilely with the dog, and resigns herself to turtling up on her side until she feels its weight ease away.

Clarke wipes her mouth, cheeks, and forehead. “Beware of dog?”

“Gustus likes to cuddle, and if that comes across as sinister because of his size, I'm not going to object to it working in my favour.”

With the woman hovering over her, Clarke notices that they're closer in age than she first assumed, and she is, if anything, more mortified. She sits up, dazedly registering all that has just occurred.

“Shit,” she says, again.

The woman cocks her head minutely to the right, hand still wrapped impressively around a lunging Gustus's collar. “You didn't hit your head, did you?”

The concrete next the pool had been unforgiving, but Clarke can't tell the pounding from her head from impact or alcohol. “I don't know.”

“Gustus, inside,” the woman commands immediately, and the beast lumbers back towards the house without so much as a whine. She scoots nearer to Clarke, placing a hand on the back of Clarke's head. “You're slurring a little. Did you drink tonight?”

“Ow, yes.”

The hand underhooks her arm, applying upward pressure. “You're coming in, and I'm taking a look.”

Clarke stands with assistance, instinctively leaning into the steady warmth at her side. Then she realizes what is happening, belatedly once again, and digs in her heels. “Wait, I don't do this with strangers.”

The woman lets her go, nodding patiently. “What's your name?”

“Clarke.”

“Clarke, I'm Lexa. I think you're hurt, and I can call an ambulance, if you'd prefer that.”

Lexa doesn't touch her again, and props open the door with her shoulder, wordlessly prompting Clarke's decision.

Clarke isn't sure how long she stands there at the edge of the patio, thoughts sluggishly looping, until the dog comes out and wraps around her legs like a cat. Without reaching down, she runs a hand over a broad, furry forehead.

“Gustus is big,” Clarke remarks. “But he has a nice face.”

“I had a dog to match the sign once. I had to put him down.”

Clarke regards the block paving with a frown, suddenly unspeakably saddened. “That's awful. I'm so sorry.”

“It was for the best. I'm not like that anymore,” Lexa adds, in a different tone. She's standing just so, backlit by the lights in the house, and not looking at Clarke.

Before she knows it, Clarke's stepping forward, Lexa's stepping inside, and she's standing under an four-metre wingspan origami vulture, suspended from the upper level.

“Whoa,” she breathes, leaning back to take in the entirety of the sculpture. “That's something else.” She tips backwards, and lands against Lexa's front.

Two hands on her hips help her fight the effects of gravity, and usher her towards an expensive-looking leather loveseat with bite marks on the armrest.

“Swept me off my feet,” Clarke laughs, head still tilted upwards as her back meets the cushion. The vulture's talons are hooked towards her at this angle, and she feels like prey. “How'd that get through the door? Can I have a shirt?”

There's a delay in response, and she squints down to Lexa standing between her legs, wearing the slightest smirk. “I'll be back.”

Looking upwards aggravates her discomfort, and Clarke adheres her cheek to the cool leather of the two-seater, eyes darting blearily around her. Everything is sharp lines and dark wood, but there are understated hints of almost tentative warmth, a photograph on a shelf, an ugly knit throw on the back of an armchair. On the black granite of the kitchen island, she identifies a corkscrew and a bottle of wine, next to a thick paperback and a fluorescent blue dog toy.

An unexpected weight collapses the other end of the couch, and she bounces upwards without warning, yelping when something cold and wet noses into her ribs.

“Stop!” She reprimands, allowing Gustus to sniff the ends of her hair, but drawing the line when he attempts a taste.

Footsteps pound down the stairs while Clarke struggles to corral the dog's tongue, and she lolls her head back when feet on the landing make a hollower sound.

“I heard you yell.”

“Tell Gustus I need space.”

Lexa releases an audible breath, momentarily contemplating the ceiling. “Gustus, down.”

The floorboards tremble as dead weight drops to Clarke's feet, and Lexa takes the dog's place, setting down a first aid kit between them. Clarke's handed a shirt, a simple black affair that she pulls over her head without objection.

“I use those dryer sheets too,” she comments, taking a deep, exaggerated whiff. “Just like home. Do you live here by yourself?”

Lexa's low chuckle vibrates very close to her ear, and her fingertips are soothing on the back of Clarke's neck. “Just me and Gustus.”

“It's a big house,” Clarke protests, not entirely sure what against.

“It's enough.” There's an edge there, to contrast Lexa's touch, then she withdraws to retrieve alcohol swabs from the kit. “You have a scrape from the concrete, and minor bruising. Can you lift your shirt so I can check the rest of your back?”

Detecting the shift in mood, Clarke earnestly follows instructions. “Of course.”

There's a pause, then: “You're fine.”

“I'll live,” Clarke agrees amiably. “I've had worse. One time, Raven and I climbed a tower crane behind the library. She left her lab keys in the cabin, and I broke my arm.”

She feels the hem of her shirt being tugged back down. “Raven, the friend that left you in my backyard?”

“Hey, she's not like that.” Recognizing the judgement in Lexa's question, Clarke swipes a swab and rips into the packaging sulkily. “We've been friends for long a time. This won't break us.”

“You're forgiving.”

“Like a kicked puppy,” Clarke concedes brightly. She spreads open the folded swab and applies the moist towelette to the entire back of her neck. It stings something fierce, and she winces at Lexa, who watches her with a strange expression. “Is this going to scar?”

“It's superficial.” Lexa sounds distinctly amused as she removes the swab and applies a bandage. “Stay here, I'm going to get you some ice.”

Clarke eyes Lexa's backside intently as she crosses to the kitchen, Gustus dutiful at her heels. Drawn to the action, she follows.

“Am I forgiven for trying to sneak into your pool?”

Lexa's back is still turned to her, engrossed with the ice dispenser. “I think you more than made up for it.”

“What do you mean?”

There's a lull as the ziploc bag is sealed and wrapped in a dishtowel. “With a bump on the back of your head.”

“But skinny dipping is a victimless crime.”

Lexa whirls around, looking all the more startled that Clarke's on the other side of the kitchen island, rearranging her bowl of fruit. Clarke plows on, filter nonexistent.

“We picked your house because I was looking at the lantern on your porch. It's beautiful. Do you make these things?”

“Yes.” The ice crunches.

“You're one of a kind. Art is great,” Clarke enthuses. “I wish I could do art.”

“You can.”

“But it's complicated.”

The fruit bowl is reclaimed from Clarke's idle hands, and Lexa picks at a particularly hairy kiwi with perfect, practised nonchalance. “Art's the least complicated thing I have.”

“I'm glad you have that.” Clarke beams at the woman from across their granite barrier, genuine and ungrudging. “I wish it was mine.”

The moment is promptly broken when Clarke, unable to resist the gorilla-shaped chew toy, retrieves it from the counter and squeezes firmly. It emits an emphatic squeak, followed by the sound of Gustus's heavy pants as he deserts Lexa for Clarke.

“I think that's enough excitement for Gustus.”

Lexa finally rounds the island, exchanging the toy for the bag of ice. When Clarke examines it with some confusion, a hand on her wrist guides the entire contraption to the back of her head. Lexa backs away swiftly, and Clarke finds a purpose.

“Can I have a phone call?”

“Where's your phone?”

Clarke feels the front of her pants, then the back of it thoroughly. “Where's my phone?”

Nodding once, Lexa liberates a flashlight from one of many identical kitchen drawers, and pushes through the back door. Clarke trails her to the threshold, but faint pressure on her shoulder halts her progression.

“Don't come near the pool,” Lexa calls back, traceable only by a zigzagging beam of light. It loops around the gate, the base of the fence where Raven departed the scene, and along the lip of the pool.

Then it goes out, and Clarke stumbles across the patio and into a lounge chair. “Lexa?”

There's a splash. Lexa returns to the light, waterlogged up to her shoulders, a phone and keys on a lanyard gathered to her chest. She dribbles across the patio and the interior of the house, disposes her spoils onto the counter, and mutely climbs the stairs.

Dismayed, Clarke addresses her back. “Lexa, I'm sorry.”

“See if you can save your phone.”

The reply is serenely civil, and assuaged, Clarke plays with her unresponsive phone, reads the last page of the paperback, and throws the gorilla for Gustus. The racket is interrupted several minutes later, on account of a dry Lexa with her left hand closed over a wireless handset. Clarke and Gustus release the chew toy simultaneously, and it plunges to the floor with an affronted squeak.

“Do you know who to call?”

Eager to please, Clarke recites the ten numbers she attributes to her parents.

“That's not a state area code.” Lexa examines Clarke's keys carefully. “You're at the co-ed, at the end of the street?”

“Did you go there too?”

Lexa chews her bottom lip. “I never went to university.”

“Oh.” Clarke deflates. “But you made it.”

“I did.”

“I can too.” Clarke postures up resolutely, stops, and looks for the front door.

“It's three in the morning, Clarke. I'll drive you home.”

“I don't deserve this.”

Lexa rubs her temple and glances at Gustus, as if petitioning for advice. “Do you want it on my conscience if something happens to you?”

It concludes their disagreement. Fishing her keys out of a heap of mail, Lexa lifts her chin at a door behind the couch. The door opens into the garage, where Clarke is quick to discover that Lexa doesn't own a convertible, but a humble older-model sedan with manual transmission and window cranks. But Clarke's high spirits refuse to subside: the car is clearly well-loved, and smells like marzipan.

“This is like a grandma's car,” she declares, burrowing into the seat. “A cute little grandma's.”

“I appreciate the comparison.”

“Maybe you're not that little.”

“Put on your seatbelt.” Lexa's voice is dry and modulated, and Clarke obliges.

The car rumbles into life with more grace than appearances indicate, and as Lexa flicks down the sun visor to access the button for the garage door, Clarke notices a photo tucked into the vanity mirror, washed out with age. She struggles with her curiosity for all of five seconds.

“Who's that?”

A stripe of amber streetlight flashes across Lexa's face, and is gone again. “Costia, from another life.”

Something in the set of Lexa's jaw moderates Clarke, and she abandons the bulk of her interest for one question that feels unduly important. “Is this one better?”

Lexa doesn't look away from the windshield, but she smiles. “Sometimes I think so.”

She proceeds to distract Clarke with pointed enquiry into the incident with the tower crane, and Clarke's still regaling her with the tale as they roll up to student housing. The car quiets underneath them, and the rest falls into silence. But there's something that needs to be said, and Clarke's never been one to equivocate.

“You had those signs up, but you're all heart with a cuddly dog.” Clarke pitches forward, lips finding their way to Lexa's cheek. “You're sweet. Your pool ate my phone. Will you let me thank you properly, another night?”

Her vision is entirely wide green eyes, and Clarke shrinks back, trying to make sense of Lexa's parted lips.

“I swear you'll like me more when I'm sober.”

“You're fine,” Lexa says, touching her own cheek, then Clarke's in passing, before leaning across to unlatch the passenger door. “There's Raven.”

True to form, Raven's holding the door, wearing Clarke's shirt and looking irreparably guilty. Clarke doesn't hear tires on gravel until she's inside, but spares it little thought, occupied with Lexa's preferences for floral arrangements and baked goods.

“Raven, do you think she's more of a chocolate chip woman, or oatmeal raisin?"


End file.
